Family, friends still hope girls will be found

<small>Still missing: Lauria Jaylene Bible </small><br><br>WELCH, Okla. (AP) --Family and friends of two 16-year-old girls are using posters and billboards to plea for help in finding the teen-agers authorities

Monday, February 14th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Still missing: Lauria Jaylene Bible

WELCH, Okla. (AP) --Family and friends of two 16-year-old girls are using posters and billboards to plea for help in finding the teen-agers authorities believe were abducted. The parents of one of the girls were found dead in their burning mobile home.

Lauria Jaylene Bible and Ashley Renae Freeman, described as best friends, haven't been seen since Bible went to the Freeman home near Bluejacket to spend the night Dec. 30. Freeman had turned 16 the day before. Freeman's parents were found shot to death in the rubble of their home. Bible's car and purse were in the driveway. Authorities say the fire was set to hide the murders and they believe the girls were taken from the home.

More than 500 posters with the girls' photos have been placed on tractor-trailer rigs that traverse the country. Billboards have been put up on Oklahoma 69 between Afton and Vinita and in Tulsa. Lorene Bible said only weak leads that don't go anywhere have been reported by the FBI. "We're trying to help," she said.

Kym Koch, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, said her office received about 50 leads from a recent broadcast of the television show, "America's Most Wanted." "Most of those have been sightings," Koch said. "But there have been no confirmed sightings. We just don't have a lot to goon."

Mrs. Bible is leading a petition drive to ask Gov. Frank Keating to make sure the case remains a top priority with law enforcement agencies. She said family members, including Freeman's grandparents, Bill and Selest Chandler, want to meet with Keating to be assured that agencies are doing everything they can.

FBI Special Agent Gary Johnson said his office also is checking leads. "We have plenty of resources to tackle any leads that come in, but none have really panned out," Johnson said. "We're doing everything we know to do," Mrs. Bible said. "It is as though these girls just vanished off the face of the earth. We're just trying to keep people sensitive and to be on the lookout. We need leads so the search can continue."

No new leads: Ashley Renae Freeman